THE COMMUNIST PARTY DEMANDS ENDTO KILLER COPS AND BEGIN BUILDING REVOLUTION

STATEMENT BY THE RIVER CITY CLUB OF THE CPUSA ON THE WOUNDING OF TWO CHILDREN BY THE LOUISVILLE METRO POLICE DEPARTMENT CONT.

The River City Club of the Communist Party of the United States of America put out a statement on the shooting of two children in the Chickasaw neighborhood of Louisville, Kentucky that occurred on February, 20th. The statement is as follows:

“The Louisville Metro Police Department continues its terror campaign as it paves the way for the latest gentrifier in chief, Craig Greenberg, by shooting and wounding two black children fleeing an unoccupied building.The killer cop is the product of a system designed to kill, to suppress one class under the boot of another. The ruling class will take all we hold dear, our bodies, our lives, our children, if we do not replace our current system. We the River City Club of the Communist Party USA are calling on a complete and total reorientation of the movement for racial equality and against police violence from one of liberal reform, to socialist revolution. We must organize the oppressed under a banner of the exploited classes, ready to end bourgeois political oppression.”

The River City Club of the CPUSA would then go on to conduct a march with both the Young Communist League at UofL, the local chapter of the youth wing of The Communist Party, and Community Control Now, a local organization oriented towards community control of law enforcement.

During the march, a leaflet was passed out stating the following:

“This week the Louisville Metro Police Department opened fire on children fleeing an unoccupied garage. The LMPD has expressed that the firearm was “accidentally discharged,” with Craig Greenberg, former 21c CEO, Republic Bank Financier, co-conspirator of the West End TIF, and now the Mayor of Louisville, expressing how thankful he is that the officers weren’t hurt. LMPD continues to lie and shoot, and injure, and kill, and it must end.

“As long as our current economic system of exploitation exists, black life, and the lives of all workers, will be less than that of private property in the eyes of our ruling class. And as long as that class is in power, law enforcement will be designed to commit violence against the oppressed. We demand:

1. The reorientation of the movement against police violence and the prison industrial complex from one of reform, to one of revolution
2. The replacement of the capitalist state with a socialist state
3. The elimination of the capitalist method of policing with a working-class method of law enforcement and community control

“The Communist Party USA in Kentucky seeks to accomplish this by taking a lead role in the labor movement, aiding our peers in common cause to change the system behind policing, creating mechanisms of power for the working and oppressed masses, and building ourselves to be the political arm of an anti-racist coalition of organized labor.”

The footage of the shooting was released on March 3rd, 11 days after the initial shooting. Featured was Brendan Kaiser, who has a history of police misconduct, and assisting officers trapping the children in the garage. The officers made no attempt to announce themselves. The officers then opened the garage, and Kaiser fired his weapon at the children as they fled. After detaining one child, the two wounded children would not be apprehended until they entered the hospital seeking medical attention.

The River City Club of the CPUSA will be publishing a follow-up statement.